In electricity generation using steam driven turbines, water is heated by a burner to create steam which drives a turbine to creates electricity. In order to minimize the amount of clean water necessary for this process, the steam must be converted back into water, by removing heat, so that the water can be reused in the process. In air conditioning systems for large buildings, air inside the building is forced passed coils containing a cooled refrigerant gas thereby transferring heat from inside the building into the refrigerant gas. The warmed refrigerant is then piped outside the building where the excess heat must be removed from the refrigerant so that the refrigerant gas can be re-cooled and the cooling process continued.
In both of the foregoing processes, and numerous other processes that require the step of dissipating excess heat, cooling towers have been employed. In wet type cooling towers, water is pumped passed a condenser coil containing the heated steam, refrigerant, or other heated liquid or gas, thereby transferring heat into the water. The water is then pumped to the top of the cooling tower and sprayed over a cooling tower media comprised of thin sheets of material or splash bars. As the water flows down the cooling tower media, ambient air is forced passed the heated water and heat is transmitted from the water to the air by both sensible and evaporative heat transfer. The air is then forced out of the cooling tower and dissipated into the surrounding air.
Cooling towers are highly efficient and cost effective means of dissipating this excess heat and thus are widely used for this purpose. A recognized drawback to cooling towers, however, is that under certain atmospheric conditions a plume can be created by moisture from the heated water source evaporating into the air stream being carried out of the top of the cooling tower. Where the cooling tower is very large, as in the case of power plants, the plume can cause low lying fog in the vicinity of the cooling tower. The plume can also cause icing on roads in the vicinity of the cooling tower where colder temperatures cause the moisture in the plume to freeze.
Efforts have therefore been made to limit or eliminate the plume caused by cooling towers. Examples of such efforts can be found in the following United States Patents:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,247,682 to Vouche describes a plume abated cooling tower in which ambient air, in addition to being brought in at the bottom of the tower and forced upwards through a fill pack as hot water is sprayed down on the fill pack, is brought into the cooling tower through isolated heat conductive passageways below the hot water spray heads. These passageways which are made from a heat conductive material such as aluminum, copper, etc., allow the ambient air to absorb some of the heat without moisture being evaporated into the air. At the top of the tower the wet laden heated air and the dry heated air are mixed thereby reducing the plume.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,524 to Howlett describes a plume prevention system in which the hot water is partially cooled before being provided into the cooling tower. The partial cooling of the hot water is performed using a separate heat exchanger operating with a separate cooling medium such as air or water. As discussed in the patent, the separate heat exchanger reduces the efficiency of the cooling tower and thus should only be employed when atmospheric conditions exist in which a plume would be created by the cooling tower.
Another example of a system designed to reduce plume in a wet type cooling tower can be found in the “Technical Paper Number TP93-01” of the Cooling Tower Institute 1993 Annual Meeting, “Plume Abatement and Water Conservation with the Wet/Dry Cooling Tower,” Paul A. Lindahl, Jr., et al. In the system described in this paper, hot water is first pumped through a dry air cooling section where air is forced across heat exchange fins connected to the flow. The water, which has been partially cooled, is then sprayed over a fill pack positioned below the dry air cooling section and air is forced through the fill pack to further cool the water. The wet air is then forced upwards within the tower and mixed with the heated dry air from the dry cooling process and forced out the top of the tower.
While the foregoing systems provide useful solutions to the wet cooling tower plume problem, they all require the construction of a complex and costly wet and dry air heat transfer mechanism. A simple and inexpensive wet and dry air cooling mechanism is still needed wherein dry heated air and wet laden heated air can be mixed before passing out of the cooling tower to thereby reduce the plume.
Another recognized problem with cooling towers is that the water used for cooling can become concentrated with contaminates. As water evaporates out of the cooling tower, additional water is added but it should be readily recognized that contaminants in the water will become more concentrated because they are not removed with the evaporate. If chemicals are added to the cooling water to treat the water these chemicals can become highly concentrated which may be undesirable if released into the environment. If seawater or waste water is used to replace the evaporated water, a common practice where fresh water is not available or costly, salts and solids in the water can also build up in the cooling water circuit As these contaminants become more concentrated they can become caked in between the thin evaporating sheets diminishing the towers cooling efficiency.
To prevent the foregoing problem it is a regular practice to “blowdown” a portion of the water with the concentrated contaminants and replace it with fresh water from the source. While this prevents the contaminants in the cooling tower water from becoming too concentrated, there may be environmental consequences to discharging water during the blowdown process. Efforts have therefore been made to reduce the water consumption in cooling towers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,771 to Houx, et al. describes the current state-of-the-art in reducing the water consumption in a cooling tower. In the system described in this patent both cooling tower evaporative heat transfer media and a coil section that transfers heat sensibly are provided in the same system. The sensible heat transfer of the coils provides cooling of the process water but does not consume any water.
While the foregoing patent represents a significant advancement over prior art cooling towers, it would be desirable if a mechanism were developed for recapturing water from the plume for replacement back into the cooling tower water reservoir which did not require a coil section for sensible heat transfer.
A separate problem that has been noted is the desalination of sea water, and purification of other water supplies, to create potable drinking water. Numerous approaches have been developed to remove purified water from a moist air stream. The major commercial processes include Multi-Stage Flash Distillation, Multiple Effect Distillation, Vapor Compression Distillation, and Reverse Osmosis. See “The Desalting ABC's”, prepared by O. K. Buros for the International Desalination Association, modified and reproduced by Research Department Saline Water Conversion Corporation, 1990. Examples of systems that use low temperature water for desalination or waste heat include the following:
“Zero Discharge Desalination”, Lu, et al., Proceedings from the ADA North American Biennial Conference and Exposition, August 2000. This paper provides information on a device that produces fresh water from a cold air stream and a warm moist air stream from a low grade waste heat source. The fresh water is condensed along the walls separating the two air streams. Also, a cold water is sprayed over the warm moist air to enhance condensation.
“Open Multiple Effect Desalination with Low Temperature Process Heat”, Baumgartner, et al., International Symposium on Desalination and Water Re-Use, Vol. 4, 1991. This paper provides information on a plastic tube heat exchanger used for desalination that uses cold running water on the inside of the plastic tubes and warm moist air flowing over the exterior of the tubes. The condensate forms on the outside of the cold tubes.
The foregoing show that there is a need for desalination systems for converting sea water, or other water supply containing high levels of contaminants, into a purer water supply. A simple and cost effective means of condensing the effluent of a cooling tower as a source of water would therefore be desirable.